Why Did I Ever Stop?

Each Thursday morning this fall, I teach a class called Invitation To Genesis to fifteen or so very animated people from Good Shepherd.

I taught this kind of class religiously in my early years at Good Shepherd. But for the last three years -- citing "scheduling conflicts" or "I'm too busy" -- I have not done so. Until this fall.

But I'm enjoying it so much I've got ask: "why did I ever stop?" And how in the world can I, as the pastor of this church, ever be too busy to teach the bible??

Invitation To Genesis is an excellent curriculum with strong video support. Our class conversations are lively and engaging, and every Thursday one or more of the class members says something about Genesis that I had never thought of before.

But the primary benefit of teaching the class is this: it gives me a focused, disciplined schedule for reading the bible every day. You'd think that as a preacher I do that anyway. Uh, no.

I need that schedule. I need the assignment. I even need a place to jot down notes!

How's your discipline in cracking open the Word of Life? Do you have it internally or do you need a class with a schedule and some accountability?

I know where I am.

That's why this spring I'll be teaching another class on Thursday mornings -- Invitation To Romans. Because there are some things you just shouldn't stop.

Cable's Out

I got home last night and the cable was out.

And it's not an area-wide outage, which means crews couldn't fix the problem last night; they'll have to stop by some time today.

But what did that mean for last night? No TV. No computer. No internet access. It's all tied in to that cable.

So last night and again this morning, we read. We talked. There was no background noise of familiar TV shows -- whether CSI re-runs at night or Morning Joe in the a.m. We're not always watching those shows, mind you; but they are always on.

Except for last night and this morning. It was actually kind of nice. Quiet.

I wonder if I'll remember that when the cable gets fixed.

My Kind Of Intervention

One more post about this past Sunday.

I woke up sick on Sunday morning. Not real sick, just enough to know that I was going to get a cold or sinus infection or something that could interfere with my energy level or the strength of my voice.

I told a couple of guys early on Sunday. They laid hands on me & prayed for healing. Then a woman in the church heard the congestion in my voice as we chatted before the 8:30 service and she spoke healing into me as well.

It all was going well until the end of the 10:00 service. After the sermon and the closing music, I stood to give what passes for a benediction around here. Nothing came out of my mouth. I couldn't talk. Oh no. I thought I was done. And I still had one more service to go through!

So I laid hands on my own throat and prayed for healing. And then other folks prayed as well.

And at the 11:30 service I had no problems at all. In fact, the delivery was better there than at the first two -- in part because I was so grateful for the miracle I was in the middle of living.

Our next healing service is Monday, November 3 at 7:00 p.m.

Love Your Money MORE

Yesterday, the one point in my sermon ran counter to the understanding most people bring to church and bring to money. I told the church to "Love your money MORE."

Of course, this seemed to go against what even casual observers of Christianity know that the bible says in I Timothy 6:10: "for the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil . . . " So right from the start, I had people's attention. "Is he going to contradict the bible?!"

Well, no. I simply said that when we like our money, we spend it on things that are trivial and temporary. When we love our money and recognize its power, we invest it in things of eternity and substance. Love your money enough to sow it into God's work.

The message was inspired by James Howell, who is the senior pastor of Myers Park United Methodist Church here in Charlotte. James is both interesting and articulate, and his sermons are seamless and provocative. I heard through the preacher grapevine that he'd given a talk in which he said the problem with Christians isn't that they love their money too much, it's that they don't love it enough to do something significant with it. I thought, "that will preach!" and then crafted my own sense of what that thought means and gave the message yesterday. You can listen to it here.

We supported the sermon with a video testimony from Spencer & Karla Stubbs, a couple who have been around this church even longer than I have. Here it is:



So do you just like your money? Or do you love it enough to do something eternal with it?

Something You've Never Heard Before

I think you are going to hear something at church this Sunday that you've never heard at church before.

I think.

I'm excited to able to say this thing, I know that.

Oddball. Week 4. 8:30. 10:00. 11:30.

If These Walls Could Talk

I continue to be amazed at the level at which people share with me in counseling.

It is a high privilege that people trust me with so much.

It is also a deep responsibility.

What does that responsibility demand of me in pastoral counseling?

• Confidentiality -- if people trust me with the deepest, most painful areas of their lives, they deserve to know that what they share is between me, them, and God.
• A good ear -- it is vitally important that I listen well. Listening involves a lot more than simply being in the same room without earplugs in! It involves eye contact, posture, and the right questions at the right time.
• Truth -- there are times in counseling when people need to hear the truth. Especially if that truth is not what they want to hear! This has been my area of greatest improvement through all the years of doing this. It is so freeing for both counselor and counsel-ee! In the long run, people are grateful for hearing what is right and true even if it challenges what they desire in the moment.
• Prayer -- this is what separates pastoral counseling from every other kind of counseling. It is rare that I don't begin and end these kinds of conversations with prayer.

If these walls could talk . . . but they won't.

After Nirvana

In an earlier post, I talked about some of my favorite rock lyrics of all time. I thought it was a pretty good list.

Until somebody pointed out to me that all of the songs were over 20 years old.

So that got me thinking. Am I really so old (46) that I can't appreciate any modern rock?

As Paul would say, "May it never be!"

I've got a son who is 16. So I have no choice but to listen to current stuff. But by and large, I really like it.

So, in no particular order, here are some of my favorite songs of the post-Nirvana age (since everyone knows that classic rock died and modern rock was born the first time they heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit.")

• Believe by The Bravery. Man, is that a good song. Especially the opening guitar part. The album itself is full of profanity, but this song has some spiritual leanings in it.
• What I've Done by Linkin' Park. Well, maybe there is an order to all these. This one is probably my favorite of them all. When we did this song in church last Christmas Eve, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.
• When You Were Young by The Killers. Another energetic, guitar-driven song with an upbeat tempo that belies its melancholy lyrics.
• The Pretender by The Foo Fighters. Could Dave Groehl have been the real talent in Nirvana?
• Man On The Moon by REM. OK, it sort of straddles the generations. But I never get tired of hearing this song. And I never meet someone named Andy without thinking to myself, "Andy did you hear about this one? Andy are you having fun?"
• Doesn't Remind Me by Audioslave. I really like the vocals. The lyrics even talk about "speaking in tongues" though I have no idea of the context. Thanks to Riley for pointing me to this one.

Enjoy the YouTube links.

What Worked

Pathfinder is one of the best things we've ever done.

It's a high-touch, low-threat way of doing small groups around here.

After years of struggling to match people with existing groups or start new groups in an old-fashioned way, we simplified the whole thing. Come to a launch event, get connected to a table full of people with whom you have some common interests, and voila! there's your group for the next six weeks. If at the end of time you're ready to move to something else, so be it. You now know 8-10 people in the church better than you used to.

And people loved it. We started 13 new groups in one night in September (!) involving about 150 people.

Why am I telling you this?

Our next launch event is tomorrow night. Yeah, Wednesday, October 22 at 7:00 in our Multi-Purpose Room. Child care provided. Come in to the church tomorrow and you'll go out 90 minutes later with new friends and a new community.

To register, sign up here.

And you'll see first hand what works.

Odd Still Does Not Equal Obnoxious

Our Discipleship Pastor James-Michael Smith brought it home yesterday with his sermon "Odd Does Not Equal Obnoxious."

It was so nice to experience it as a worshipper and a learner rather than a preacher.

You can listen to his talk here. Scroll down and click on Sunday's message.

Odd Does Not Equal Obnoxious

Unfortunately, way too many of Jesus' followers thing being odd is synoymous with being obnoxious.

Or worse:

This Sunday we'll see just how far that is from authentic, oddball, holiness.

Because odd does not equal obnoxious. It's so much more.

8:30. 10:00. 11:30.

Another Crisis

Wall Street's Financial Crisis is not the only one in the world.

The last six weeks have seen a wave of anti-Christian violence in the Indian state of Orissa. Here's a hint of what's been happening, courtesy of www.barnabasfund.org.:

Hindu extremist violence against the Christian community in Orissa State, India, which started on 24 August (see previous articles : 12/09/2008, 01/09/2008), has continued almost unabated since then. At least 50 Christians have been murdered, some cut to pieces and others burnt alive. Many fear that the death toll is even higher, with one estimate suggesting that 120 Christians have been killed. About 18,000 people have been injured, many of them severely; numerous Christian women have been raped; some 4,400 homes have been destroyed; 300 villages have been cleansed of all Christians; and several orphanages and hundreds of churches and church buildings have been torched and razed. Relief camps, where Christians have fled for safety and shelter, have been attacked and drinking water has been poisoned.
Over 50,000 Christians are thought to be homeless, and around 30,000, more than half of them children, are hiding in the jungle, many without any food and water. Starvation is a very real danger for many of them, especially for the children, the elderly and the sick. Christians wanting to return to their homes have been told by the Hindu extremists: “Come back as Hindu or don’t come back at all.” Many who dare to return to their villages are forcibly converted to Hinduism. Sometimes the Hindu extremists pour petrol over the Christians and then ask them to convert; if they refuse they will be burnt.
And still the government shows itself reluctant to act. Although there has been talk of banning the Bajrang Dal, one of the Hindu nationalist groups responsible for the gruesome acts, and of imposing presidential rule over Orissa, no action has been taken. Additional police and a helicopter have been sent to the area, which has helped to improve conditions in at least some districts, but officials still advise journalists and members of NGOs (non-governmental organisations) not to go into the affected areas as they cannot provide protection.
“The sheer scale of the ongoing anti-Christian violence in Orissa, and the reluctance of federal, state and local authorities to act and protect the Christians is a serious and deeply disturbing development in Indian society,” says Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, International Director of Barnabas Fund. “The Indian Christian community, not only in Orissa but also in other Indian states, is facing one of its worst crises. The attempt by Hindu extremists to turn India into a Hindu state and drive out Christianity by whatever means must be stopped. We must stand and pray with our brothers and sisters through this dark time, and offer them all the help we can.”


Are you as surprised as I am that the persecution is at the hands of Hindus, whom we normally regard as exceptionally tolerant? Are you also surprised that this story barely registers a blip on the media radar?

Our church is blessed with many people from India who are part of our worshipping congregation. Their hearts are heavy during these days and this persecution.

You can find ways to be directly involved at www.barnabasfund.org.

Still A Vice President's Husband

I have posted before on Julie's job in sales management with Kinetic Concepts, Inc., a San Antonio-based medical device firm.

She's at it again. Not too long ago she received yet another promotion, this one from Regional Vice President of Sales to Divsion Vice President of Sales. She is responsible for an enormous sales team that covers all of the U.S. east of the Mississippi River. Because of this promotion, she now has vice presidents who report to her.

Maybe that's why she's smiling.

I married well . . .

Forgetting What I Remember

I have posted before on the process of preaching without notes.

While I wouldn't do it any other way, it does have its pitfalls.

This past Sunday, for example, I knew that I was forgetting something late in the sermon. Because I remember things based on where they are on a page, I could see in my mind's eye a whole chunk of one of the later "pages" of the sermon, but I couldn't remember what went on that page.

So I snuck a peek at my manuscript before the third service. "That's it! That's what I'm forgetting!" It was an old story involving Henry Clay Morrison (instrumental in the founding of Asbury Seminary) and the fact that this world is not our home.

But I was so intent on remembering to include that particular anecdote -- which I did -- that I then forgot a very funny line & photo about me attending a Miley Cyrus concert and the Dalai Lama attending an NRA Convention.

So in all my "rush to remember," I remembered something that helped the sermon a little and then forgot something that at the first two services had helped it a lot.

Oh well.

Preaching without notes is still worth it.

Because if I'm open to it, it is teaching me that whatever gets remembered -- or even forgotten -- has more to do with God's hand than my mind.

"I Can't Believe I'm Gonna Say This!"

I like sermons in which I have some things I'm a little bit scared to say.

And when I'm giving that sermon in which I have some things I'm a bit scared to say and I am approaching the time in the sermon when it's time to say them, inside I'm like "I can't believe I'm gonna say this! But if I don't it will kill me!"

I had one of those moments yesterday in Week Two of the Oddballs series. The whole sermon was about being "resident aliens," taken from I Peter 2:11-12: "I urge you as strangers and aliens in this world . . . " The focus of my talk was that while we live here, we belong there -- that because of our faith we are both out of step with our culture and out of place on planet earth.

Anyway, part of being "out of step" has to do with modern Christianity's use of politics. It bothers me when the church climbs into bed with a particular politician or policy, in a sense claiming that a vote for that candidate is a vote for Jesus. Please. And church people on both the right and the left are guilty -- though honestly, the evangelicalism of which I am a part usually lands on the right.

So I said all that. Even used the phrase "gets into bed." And I followed that up by saying that the church would make its loudest statement on abortion . . . if Christian couples would stop having them. If abortion doctors could no longer count on business from church-related people, well that might be even more effective than overturning Roe v. Wade (a case I'd be glad to have overturned).

I suspect that I said those words in the hearing of some people who had had or paid for abortions. It got very quiet in there.

But I'm glad I conquered my fear and said what needed to be said. Because it's usually the most authentic preaching I have.

Just Do It

It's more than a Nike slogan.

It's what you should do when you know of someone going through grief or recovering from illness.

In those situations we usually say, "Just let me know if I can do anything for you." Or we ask, "Is there anything I can do?"

But people going through grief or recovering from illness never take you up on those kinds of offers. They are usually out of sorts enough that they can't really articulate how you can meet their needs.

So: just do it. Make the meal. Send the card. Show up to provide baby sitting. Arrange the time to take the person to chemotherapy. Don't ask how you can help. Instead, figure out how you can help and then do it.

No questions asked.

Just do it.

Credible Communication

Quick: which of these animals is more likely to kill you?

A SHARK A DEER

Answer: The deer is more likely to kill you. Actually, it's 300 times more likely to kill you via a collision with your car than a shark is through, uh, consumption in the ocean.

That's a true statistic from the Florida Museum of Natural History as found in Made To Stick, the masterful communication book by Chip and Dan Heath. The Heaths call that kind of communication credible, meaning that it has the kind of unexpected truth about it that once you give it some thought you say, "of course."

Credibility goes beyond hard numbers and into the realm of lived experience: "see for yourself if this is true or not."

It's why I can't preach on tithing if I'm not tithing myself. It's why the staff can't teach on serving if it is not serving itself. It's why the church can't talk about compassion without being compassionate itself.

I guess it's why we're having so much fun hosting our twelve new friends from the Salvation Army this week. I pray it makes all the talk here credible.

Check This Out

We used this video to introduce Week One of Oddballs:



It reinforced the words of Peter: "be holy in all you do" (I Peter 1:15). We normally think of holiness in terms of those things we avoid. That verse along with the video remind us that holiness is active, positive, and involved.

Thanks to Joe Jackson for his video production and to John Pavlovitz for his art direction.

Sad Trip Thoughts

As I posted here, I had to travel to Austin, Texas last week to help with the memorial service for my 32 year old nephew, Christopher Davis, who died after being struck by a car while riding his bicycle.

In the middle of a lot of sad, poignant moments, one stuck with me. Just hours before he died, Christopher told his first cousin (my niece who is about Christopher's age) that when the time came for him to get married, he would want me as his uncle and a pastor to perform the ceremony. And then four days later, there I was doing his funeral.

So I re-told that anecdote in my eulogy and summarized it by saying, "that sucks." Not language I'd usually use on a Sunday morning, but it certainly fit the mood as well as the gathering. It gave expression to the feeling of we-shouldn't-be-here-doing-this that so many of us had.

The memorial service didn't try to answer the question of why chaotic things happen in life. Yet in acknowledging pain and loss, I believe the service opened the door for Jesus' words to become real in the lives of those gathered there in Austin: blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Oddball Week One

We gave out about 1000 of these Oddballs last Sunday.

That's because Oddball is the name of our new series that starts this Sunday, October 5.

It's all about I Peter, it's all about holiness, it's all about these odd red balls. How do all those things fit together?

You'll find out on Sunday. 8:30. 10:00. 11:30.

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I'll post some thoughts on my Austin trip next week.

Mission On Film

How much better is this than a group of people standing up and giving their "mission trip report"?



Thanks to the heroes of Good Shepherd and to Joe Jackson for his video production.

Enjoy this while I'm in Austin.

Sad Trip

I am taking a sad trip this morning.

I'm flying to Austin, Texas so that I can preside at the funeral of my nephew, Christopher Davis. Christopher was only 32 and was struck by a car while riding his bicycle early Sunday morning. He died on the way to the hospital. You can read his obituary here.

No one should have to read or write their own child's obituary. But now my oldest brother Harvey has done just that.

Back in November of 2006, I had the eulogy for my father's memorial service. That was an honor, to be sure, but his death was neither tragic nor unexpected -- he was 95.

I'll be leading this one as well, with help from several of Christopher's friends and band mates, and also a word from my 92 year old mother. As I've said here before, I believe that funerals are to give expression and permission. They are occasions for the eulogist to articulate things that many in attendace are feeling but can't yet speak -- that's expression. And they are sacred times to let people know that grief -- in this case, heart-wrenching grief -- is natural, normal, and healthy. That's permission.

I'll be back in Charlotte on Friday.